Conventionally, a ventilation system including a generally-called total heat exchanger (503) has been known as one type of air conditioners. As shown in FIG. 39, the ventilation system includes an air supply path (501) for supplying outdoor air indoors, and an air exhaust path (502) for discharging room air outdoors. Wherein, “OA”, “SA”, “RA”, and “EA” mean outdoor air, air (supply air) supplied indoors, room air, and air (exhaust air) discharged outdoors, respectively.
The total heat exchanger (503) includes a first passage (504) and a second passage (505), wherein the first passage (504) is arranged in the air supply path (501) and the second passage (505) is arrange in the air exhaust path (502). At each upstream side of the first passage (504) and the second passage (505), a filter (506, 507) is provide so that no dust or the like enters inside of the total heat exchanger (503).
In the above ventilation system, outdoor air sucked in the air supply path (501) passes through the first passage (504) of the total heat exchanger (503), to be supplied indoors, while room air sucked in the air exhaust path (502) passes through the second passage (505) of the total heat exchanger (503), to be discharged outdoors. In the total heat exchanger (503), heat and moisture are exchanged between the outdoor air passing through the first passage (504) and the room air passing through the second passage (505).
Further, a humidity control device as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open Publication No. 9-329371A has been known as another air conditioner. This humidity control device, which includes an adsorption element for adsorbing moisture in air, dehumidifies supply air for ventilation by the adsorption element, to supply the dehumidified air indoors, and regenerates the adsorption element by exhaust air for ventilation.
The present inventors applied the above ventilation system with the total heat exchanger (503), to devise a ventilation system with an adsorption element having the following humidity control and cooling passages, in lieu to the total heat exchanger (503) in the aforementioned ventilation system. Namely, the humidity control passage for allowing the adsorption element to adsorb moisture in the air flowing therein and the cooling passage for cooling the adsorption element warmed by adsorption heat by the air flowing therein are provided at the air supply path (501) and at the air exhaust path (502), respectively. With this construction, outdoor air is dehumidified and supplied indoors and the adsorption element is cooled by utilizing the room air to be discharged outdoors.
Means of Solving the Problems
However, direct application to the conventional construction involves the following problems.
Conventionally, the air in each air path flows in one direction, and therefore, considerable amounts of dust and the like are deposited on the filters after long-term operation, thereby inviting performance degradation and lifetime shortening of the total heat exchanger and the adsorption element. For example, in a ventilation system installed in a building facing a road, outdoor air includes a large amount of dust and much dust is deposited on filters on the outdoor side. This is the significant problem.
To tackling this problem, periodic filter cleaning is considered for preventing performance degradation and lifetime shortening of the total heat exchanger and the adsorption element. However, the device for which periodic cleaning is inevitable involves a considerable burden on maintenance and may invite increase in maintenance cost.
In an air conditioner including an air conditioning element such as a total heat exchanger, an adsorption element, and the like, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems and has its object of preventing performance degradation and extending lifetime of the air conditioning element while reducing a burden on maintenance and maintenance const.